Pelosi: We May Shut Down the Government Over Immigration

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer gambled with President Trump over immigration and lost. Now, she's threatening a government shutdown.

By NTK Staff | 10.10.2017 @3:00pm

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested on Monday she could lead an effort to shut down the government if Democrats don’t reach a deal with Republicans on extending protections for undocumented immigrants known as DREAMers.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) dismissed President Trump’s new hard-line immigration proposals as “a complete non-starter” Monday, adding that her caucus may withhold support for must-pass spending bills later this year if Congress can’t reach agreement on how to protect “dreamers” from deportation.

“I fully intend to use every possibility” to strike a deal on the status of young immigrants protected by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Pelosi said. But, she added: “We’re not at that place yet. Right now, we’re trying to get Republicans to vote on what we believe.”

This is not the first time Pelosi has threatened a shutdown over liberal priorities. In April, she said Democrats would withhold votes from any government funding bill that didn’t “provide permanent Obamacare subsidies to help cover costs for low-income enrollees and keep insurance markets afloat.”

The threat is a touch ironic, though, given Pelosi’s ally, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), said in 2013 that shutting down the government over immigration would be “governmental chaos.”

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER: Speaker Boehner comes in and he says, basically, it’s sorta like this. Someone goes into your house, takes your wife and children hostage, and then says ‘let’s negotiate over the price of your house.’ You know, we could do the same thing on immigration. We believe strongly in immigration reform. We could say ‘we’re shutting down the government, we’re not gonna raise the debt ceiling, until you pass immigration reform.’ It would be governmental chaos.“

Schumer and Pelosi recently gambled with a supposed deal with President Trump on immigration. It appears their bet didn’t go as planned, so now Pelosi is considering a shutdown to try to get what she wants.